Do HIPPA privacy laws apply in employer/employee or workplace issues?

HIPAA prohibits the disclosure of private medical information without the patient's authorization.  However, you don't really give enough information to determine whether there has been a violation here.  First, we need to know where the medical records were kept.  If they were being maintained by your employer, then the employer has an obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the records.  We also need to know who "disclosed" the records without authorization.  For instance, if your medical records were being maintained by your employer (and I would be curious as to why an employer would maintain detailed medical records regarding employees unless the employer is a health care provider), it would be a violation of HIPAA for the employer to disclose the information.  You indicate that someone "found" the records, so we don't know whether the records were disclosed by the employer.  About all we can say here is that any entity which maintains detailed medical records concerning an employee has an obligation to keep those records confidential unless the employee/patient authorizes their disclosure.